Local history – examining a pivotal intersection between three postwar artists

Dominique Lévy gallery is presenting Local History, a transatlantic exhibition that presents the moment of creative intersection between three distinct post-war artists. Spanning from the 1950s to the 1970s, the exhibition presents rarely seen works by Enrico Castellani, Donald Judd, and Frank Stella, emphasising their brief aesthetic collision in the 1960s. Works are juxtaposed with their later pieces, revealing the distinctive and individual developments in each artist’s practice.

The exhibition starts with Judd’s formulations of what he called a “specific object” – artwork that hovers between the boundaries of painting and sculpture, and goes beyond the confines of such categories. Judd’s quest reveals itself to be highly influential on Castellani’s and Stella’s early endeavours into experimental, radical painting.

Local History takes its name from an exhibition review Judd wrote in 1964, which came to be interpreted as a manifesto for a new kind of art removed from the prevailing concerns of medium specificity and expression. Enrico Castellani and Frank Stella, whose experiments shaped Judd’s own practice, were both championed in his writings. Local History examines the parallels between the three artists in this transformative period, which ultimately redefined the limits of painting, sculpture, and what lay in between, in post-war art and beyond.

Castellani_Quadripolare (Superficie Bianca)_1971.sm

Enrico Castellani Quadripolare (Superficie bianca), 1971
© 2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York /SIAE, Rome.
Photo Credit: Elizabeth Bernstein, Courtesy Dominique Lévy Gallery, New York.
On show at Dominique Lévy New York.

Stella, Unpublished print (Over the Waves), 1967

Frank Stella Unpublished print (Over the Waves), 1967
© 2014 Frank Stella / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Photo Credit: Tom Powell. Courtesy Dominique Lévy Gallery, New York.
On show at Dominique Lévy London

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Donald Judd Untitled (DSS 41), 1963
© Judd Foundation. Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Photo Credit: Photo Jeff Jahn. Courtesy Dominique Lévy Gallery, New York.
On show at Dominique Lévy New York.

London, Installation View_1

Dominique Lévy London installation view
Photo courtesy of  Dominique Lévy

by Louise Lui

Local History will run from October 14, 2014 through January 24, 2015 at Dominique Lévy London.
22 Old Bond Street, London

Local History will run from October 30, 2014 through January 3, 2015 at Dominique Lévy New York.
909 Madison Avenue, New York